LURKING unnoticed in dark and crowded bars, gangs of phone thieves are stalking city nightspots to steal valuable mobiles from drunken revellers.

LURKING unnoticed in dark and crowded bars, gangs of phone thieves are stalking city nightspots to steal valuable mobiles from drunken revellers.

The Chronicle can today reveal that Newcastle’s pubs and clubs are being plagued by organised criminals who travel to Tyneside from all over the country to get their hands on drinkers’ iPhones and Blackberries.

The professional crooks are taking advantage of the dark busy bars and their clientele’s drunken state to help themselves to handbags and phones.

And with the contents of some women’s bags being worth more than £500, stealing from revellers in Newcastle can be an easy yet lucrative business for the pickpockets, who have been known to take up to 10 phones a night.

Police are waging war on these sneak thieves that have been targeting revellers on Friday and Saturday nights.

In a bid to catch the culprits in the act and arrest them, plain-clothed officers are mingling with revellers and merging into the crowds ready to pounce.

Sgt Jane McLean said: “Mobile phone theft is a problem in all major cities, and it’s something that has been rumbling on here and it was something we decided we needed to do something about. It’s all iPhones and Blackberrys being stolen, which they can sell for a lot of money.

“We have been running this operation since the end of October, and there is a team of dedicated officers working to look at the theft of mobile phones in the city centre.”

Sgt McLean explained that thieves will visit the busy bars in the Bigg Market, Collingwood Street and the Gate, and blend into the crowds before selecting their targets.

“There’s a real mixture of the way the offences are committed,” she continued. “You get the ‘amiable drunk’ thieves who hug someone and dips their pockets. Or you get the thieves that pay close attention to people in bars and look at which phones they are using then stealing them from handbags.

“Then you get the ‘table surfers’ who look for phones left lying on tables, so there are a range of methods.”

Northumbria Police’s city centre Chief Inspector, Bruce Storey said it is important revellers do their bit to keep phones safe on nights out as his officers work to catch the thieves.

“As part of this operation, officers are out in the city centre on Friday and Saturday nights looking to identify known thieves and pass on crime prevention advice to people on nights out,” he explained.

“Advice like: reminding people to not leave handbags and jackets unattended and not leave expensive items like mobile phones out on tables – as we know there are thieves about.

“We have been running this operation for the last few weekends and have made a number of arrests. We have returned stolen mobile phones, bags and purses to victims and spoken to people about the importance of keeping their property safe.”

“People leaving items out on show in busy environments like pubs and bars are making life easy for thieves and we need the public’s help to stop this type of offence from happening.”

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